Robinette Consulting, Why?
“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
I wanted to start this blog by documenting the formation of my business, Robinette Consulting, starting with the “why”. I am starting a new adventure and stepping out my door, a dangerous business per J.R.R. Tolkien, so why do it? Short answer: my heart is called to serve current and future generations with the key element to life, and Robinette Consulting (RC for short) is my “how”.
My intention is to maximize Robinette Consulting’s impact on our water and wastewater infrastructure in the West. RC will focus on doing the work and building the relationships to make meaningful and sustainable improvements possible. Increasingly, completing the urgent and proactive regional projects needed to continue our way of life has fallen to locals to sort out. Impacted local agencies, districts, farmers, and citizens must pool their resources to get things done.
These regional partnerships are the future of water and wastewater infrastructure problem-solving. I fundamentally believe this is a good thing for future generations. It is not a new idea, but it is happening at a scale that requires a new approach. Some things RC is focused on helping regional partnerships do:
Develop transparent and durable agreements
Understand and allocate costs in a way that is fair easy to understand
Build an organization to deliver benefits for generations to come
Lead engineering efforts so partnerships get the best overall value and manage risk
Find ways to do things better along the way
I am an engineer. I love to help agencies build things and get the best value for ratepayers, taxpayers, and landowners. I like to “get technical” and I have the experience to make sure risks are properly managed through the design and construction of projects. One thing my experience has taught me, though, is that this is not the biggest gap RC can help fill. For that, we look to history.
The below quote is from the timeless resource “Battling the Inland Sea” and illustrates the gap eloquently in discussing regional efforts at flood control in the Sacramento Valley in the 1870s.
Like all book-educated people, engineers tended to bring abstract principles, based on bodies of learning acquired in faraway locations, to local questions, and this was instinctively distrusted by ordinary people who relied on the direct teaching of their own senses-in this case on walking beside and living with and observing daily the Sacramento River and its tributaries, and laboring through the long days and nights of actual floods. - Battling the Inland Sea, Robert Kelley and David N. Kennedy
Building regional projects today requires pairing a deep understanding of the engineering and business principles of project management with the ability to engage and listen to the people who know and work the land. This is why Robinette Consulting exists and why I am stepping out my door for this new adventure.
JP and his sons in the Sites Valley in Northern California, December 2020
